


The Touch Book

by SweetSorcery



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Incest, Kissing, M/M, Male Slash, Pining, Poetry, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetSorcery/pseuds/SweetSorcery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's nothing Draco loves more than his book of poetry, except the man who gave it to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Touch Book

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All canon referred to within belongs to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, Warner Bdos. Inc., and possibly others. Non-canon bits were created for non-profit, non-infringement entertainment.
> 
> Archiving: Nowhere except here, and not in translated form either.
> 
> Author's Notes: This was written in January 2007.  
> I admit, this is unashamedly sappy and flowery, and I'm not sorry in the least.

Draco sat on the sofa by the library fireplace, his legs in pearl white pyjamas elegantly tucked against his side. He held a book of poems in his hands, but his eyes reflected the flames licking around the logs. He was staring into the fire rather than at the words on the page; he knew them off by heart already.

 _My Love is of a birth as rare..._

His father had given him the book on his fifteenth birthday, three years earlier, and whenever Draco had come home to Malfoy Manor, he had hidden himself away with it to read and to dream - in summer under the charmed apple tree by the gazebo, in winter in front of the fire. He was surrounded by books at the manor, but this tattered, well-thumbed volume had been, and would always be, his most prized possession.

He had never dared take it to Hogwarts with him, lest it be stolen, or even merely touched, by some unworthy hand. It was essential, he felt, that none but the giver and recipient should ever hold it. That way, their touches could linger and remain impressed in the deep red velvet cover, to be shared between them where none would know.

Draco no longer had to do without his book for months on end, and every night when he was at home, he cradled it, selecting a poem and reading the words until he had them memorized. Then he repeated them quietly in his mind, dreaming about being permitted to recite them to the one he loved. In summer, he dreamed among white blossoms charmed to perpetually flutter to the grass, and in winter while reaching for the passion of the flames. And no matter the season, he would taste unshed tears, aching to escape.

 _It was begotten by Despair,  
Upon Impossibility._

Draco did not hear the door opening, but he felt the new arrival as keenly as he felt his own heartbeat. His father had a presence which seemed to fill a room, and Draco had been keenly aware of it even as a child. It no longer scared him, except with the things it made him want.

When the door softly clicked shut once again, Draco smiled a little. "Good evening, father."

"Draco." The voice which was so stern and mocking in public was mellow and tender in private, and they both knew why there had to be such a gulf of difference. It would not do for Lucius to be heard speaking his son's name as he did when they were alone.

Shivering, Draco held the book against his chest.

 _For Fate, with jealous eye does see  
Two perfect loves; nor lets them close:_

"Do you mind if I join you?" Lucius walked around the sofa to look down at Draco. He was dressed in black silk from head to foot, with a royal blue sash around the waist of his smoking jacket to match the trim at his collar. Flames reflected off his silver blond hair - the mane of a Samson, or an Achilles, it was the hair of a man of immense power and virility. There was a kind of deep, ancient magic in that.

Draco felt his heart speed up until it dizzied him. "Your company is always welcome, father," he breathed.

 _Their union would her ruin be,  
And her tyrannic power depose._

Lucius inclined his head and sat down beside him with a slight smile. "You are reading poetry again?"

"From your book, father."

"It is yours. I gave it to you, as I remember." Lucius reached for it and, with a gentle brush over Draco's knuckles, he took the volume from trembling hands.

"It will always be yours," Draco stated firmly, his eyes fixed on the smooth hands opening the book and caressing its pages. Once again, he shivered, wondering whether his own essence was by now contained within those pages, the way his father's was contained in him.

When Lucius instinctively found the poem Draco had been reading that night, he swept his eyes over it, then marked it with his finger on the page to look at his son. He met eyes much like his own, except a little warmer, a little sadder, yet more hopeful. "We shall share it then," he agreed. "And call it our book." His lips turned up at the corners when a spark of happiness lit his son's eyes.

 _As lines, so loves oblique, may well  
Themselves in every angle greet:_

They were so alike in look and manner, and yet so different in temperament. Lucius knew it well, and often wondered how aware Draco was of it. His own resignation to what could and could not be, to the ways in which mind, heart and body could not always be reconciled, were matters still foreign to Draco at his tender age. Merely eighteen, and yet so sad, so weary already. Lucius only hoped that his son's passionate heart would mellow and seek a consolation prize, before the despair of longing crushed it.

 _But ours, so truly parallel,  
Though infinite, can never meet._

Draco grew warm under the scrutiny, and anxious. "Father, are you cross with me?" he asked hesitantly.

Lucius relaxed his manner with an effort, smiling slightly. "Never with you, my darling. I would be cross with the world at large first."

Draco's heart leapt. "Father," he said, too quickly, too desperately. "Father, I…"

"What is it, Draco?" Lucius leaned towards him, the book sliding off his knee to rest against Draco's thigh.

Draco swallowed hard, meeting the concerned eyes with as much courage as he could muster. "I love you, father." It was all he dared to say, and yet so much more. He knew his voice had betrayed him the moment he heard those desperate words fill the space between them. He had said all he could, all he should not, and he meant even more.

And Lucius knew it well. His eyes were a storm of contradictions - grey and sad and uncertain like Draco's. He felt he should leave, but could not do so without breaking Draco's spirit. Perhaps his own as well. So he leaned towards him instead, and the slighter body moved closer, until Lucius' lips were breathing softly on a pale cheek. A moment before they touched it, Draco turned his face, and their lips came together. Neither had the heart to stop it.

Draco's mouth was soft and yielding, but his quivering lips betrayed his fear and nervousness. But what a sweet vibration they were against Lucius' mouth, where they were soothed and gentled, parted with no effort at all, and a sigh of regret, of wishing and wanting, was slipped between them. And for some precious moments - more precious even than the book lying momentarily forgotten between them - there was an exchange of equal longing and despair. The salt of tears slowly spoiled the honey sweetness, until they had to part to avoid drowning in misery.

Lucius' fingers were on Draco's chin when he drew back reluctantly, closing his eyes against the soft whimper of loss. His thumb replaced his lips across Draco's, as if to hush him. When he locked eyes with his beautiful son again, he said brokenly, "And I love you, Draco."

And with those words, he agreed and commiserated, he yearned, and denied, all at once. And it broke his heart like nothing ever had, or ever would, to see the hope die in Draco's eyes. "Remember this," he whispered, before pressing his thumb tenderly against the velvet mouth as if to imprint his kiss there for eternity. "Remember it always."

 

 _Therefore the love which us doth bind,  
But Fate so enviously debars,  
Is the conjunction of the mind,  
And opposition of the stars._

 

 _poetry extracts from "The Definition of Love"  
\-- Andrew Marvell (1621 - 1678)_


End file.
